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Movies | Written by Andrew Pollard 14/05/2014

Movie News: Jesse Eisenberg on MAN OF STEEL Sequel’s Lex Luthor

Now that the Bat is out of the bag, are we going to see Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor any time soon? Likely not, although the actor has been speaking to IGN about Superman’s greatest nemesis in Zack Snyder’s MAN OF STEEL sequel.

On how he’s approaching the role, Eisenberg said, “I don’t know the history as well as the people making the movie, so I guess it’s up to them to figure out how much they want to separate it from the previous incarnations. But I will treat it like it’s its own role. There’s no way to play the history of the character played by other people, unless you do some kind of wink, but that doesn’t seem like a responsible way to act. So I will just do it as though it’s a character, in the same way you do a movie like THE DOUBLE, which is a smaller movie – but you just kind of treat it like a character, and that’s probably the best course of action, I think.”

When asked the big question about whether he would be shaving his head for the Luthor gig, the actor clammed up, saying, “I’m not allowed to say anything because of their privacy.”

On taking the Lex role and joining the large cinematic world that Warner Brothers and DC are putting together, Eisenberg added, “The character’s really good, so it’s like doing anything else. They make a lot of those movies, so if you’re an actor in things, you will probably cross paths with it at some point. But the character’s written well. It’s a really great role. The fact that it’s in a big movie, you know, it seems like a character that would be in any kind of movie. It just happens to be in a bigger, flashier kind of thing.”

As well as Eisenberg, the still untitled MAN OF STEEL sequel will also feature Henry Cavill as Superman, Ben Affleck as Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Ray Fisher as Victor Stone/Cyborg, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Jeremy Irons as Alfred Pennyworth, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, and unknown roles for Holly Hunter, Callan Mulvey and Tao Okamoto.

Snyder’s Batman/Superman mash-up is currently set for a 6th May, 2016 release, seeing it going head-to-head with CAPTAIN AMERICA 3.